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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN. 



The Discovery of America. 



A Commemoration Address 



DELIVERED IN UNIVERSITY HALL, OCTOBER 21. 1892, 

By the Invitation of the University Senate. 




i°3G£>v 



B. A. HINSDALE, LL. I). 

Professor of the Science and the Art of Teaching. 



Published by the University, 
1892. 









"THE REGISTER PUBLISHING CO.. ENGRAVERS AND PRINTERS. 



THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 



Gentlemen of the University Senate: 

The great event that we have assembled to commemorate came 
on a flood-tide of great events. In 1453 the Turks took Constanti- 
nople, thereby putting an end to the Roman Empire and extinguish- 
ing the pharos of learning that had burned on the Bosphorus 
through the Middle Ages, but also scattering the Greek scholars over 
Europe and contributing to the revival of letters. In 1454 some 
printer at Mayence, perhaps Gutenberg, published the thirty-one 
line indulgence, thus demonstrating the art of printing with mov- 
able types. In 1487 Dias discovered the Cape of Good Hope, 
which Da Gama doubled ten years later on his great voyage to the 
Indies. In 1492 the Western Mohammedan Empire came to an 
end. In 1517 Luther nailed his theses to the door of the Castle 
Church in Wittenberg and began the Protestant Reformation. In 
1519-1522 Magellan sailed through the strait that bears his name, 
named and crossed the Pacific Ocean, and not only touched hands with 
Da Gama but made the first circumnavigation. In 1543 Copernicus 
published his " De Orbium Revolutionibus," thus preparing the 
way for Galileo, Kepler, and Newton. Within the limits of these 
years other things of great importance were done. Latin and Greek 
letters were practically restored to men, modern art attained its 
highest perfection, the boundaries of knowledge were immensely 
expanded, mental freedom was gained, and the human mind born 
again. With all the rest, civilization changed front; hitherto it had 
faced the Mediterranean Sea, henceforth it faces the Atlantic Ocean. 
Well might Humboldt ask where in the histoiy of nations we can 
find another epoch fraught with such triumphs of the human mind. 
The New World was not, indeed, uncovered and placed in the clear 



light of knowledge at any one time, or by any one man; it was a 
process rather than an act, occupying many years and enlisting 
many agents, but the transaction of October 12, 1492, so far tran- 
scends all the rest that historians have appropriately given it the 
name that in strictness belongs to the whole series, — The DiscovERY 
of America. 

In the long series of antecedents culminating in this discovery, 
scientific ideas and practical achievements are so blended that it is 
hard to tell which of the two contribute most to the interest of the 
story. At a university commemoration, certainly, it would be 
unpardonable not to give the scientific elements due recognition. 

Knowledge of the earth has been widened mainly by war, com- 
merce, missionary undertakings, and travel; but the facts that the 
soldier, the trader, the missionary, and the traveler have collected, 
students have always stood ready to systematize. More narrowly, 
the History of Geography presents four stages of progress: (1) Cer- 
tain facts are observed or discovered; (2) from these data a general 
conception or theory is deduced; (3) additional facts are accumu- 
lated; (4) this new material is distributed according to the old 
theory or scheme, or compels the formation of a new one. 

The first men to frame a theory of the earth represented it as a 
flat, disc-like surface of small area. We read of the "circle of 
the earth " in the prophecy of Isaiah, and of a" compass upon the 
face of the depth" in the Proverbs. The world of Homer is a 
circle, having Greece as a center, drawn with a radius long enough 
to include Asia Minor, the Valley of the Lower Nile, and most of 
Italy, the whole surrounded by the Ocean. How naturally this 
conception came to the mind of the primitive geographer, we cannot 
fail to see the moment we put ourselves in his place. To the 
unscientific mind seeing is believing; and Sir John Herschel very 
justly observes that "almost all of the conclusions of astronomy 
stand in open and striking contradiction with those of superficial 
and vulgar observation and with what appears to every one, until 
he has understood and weighed the proofs to the contrary, the most 
positive evidence of his senses." 



Time compelled the abandonment of the disc theory and the 
creation of a new one. Cold shut out from the north the races that 
contributed to geographical knowledge and heat shut them out 
from the south,- while within the two oceans east and west they 
encountered no insuperable mete or bound. The relations of the 
three old continents to one another and to the waters that furnished 
the theaters of commerce — the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the 
Persian Gulf, and the Indian Ocean — gave to history an east-and- 
west movement. The Phoenicians laid one hand upon India and 
the other upon Britain. As a result, the men who now thought out 
the problem conceived of the earth as a flat, trencher-like surface of 
much greater extent from east to west than from north to south. 
Traces of this theory are thickly scattered over the pages of ancient 
literature, and we have survivals of it in the terms " latitude" and 
" longitude'" still in current use. 

Still fuller knowledge compelled the abandonment of the paral- 
lelogram theory. Men who became somewhat emancipated from 
superficial and vulgar observation, saw the heavenly bodies in 
different positions in different latitudes, at different hours of the 
day and at different seasons of the year; they saw day and night 
varying in length with latitude and with the season; they saw that 
the shadow cast by the earth in eclipses of the moon is round, and 
that ships "hull down" as they go out to sea. In these observa- 
tions originated the central ideas of geographical and astronomical 
science, the sphericity of the earth and its revolution around the 
sun. AVhether he originated these ideas or not, they bore in 
antiquity the name of Pythagoras, and more than two thousand 
years later Galileo was condemned for teaching " a false Pythago- 
rean notion." On the conception of the sphericity of the earth, 
such men as Eratosthenes, Hipparchus, and Ptolemy built up the 
system known to scholars as the Greek Geography. To be more 
definite, this geography may be described as follows: (1) The 
ancients accumulated a great mass of geographical material; (2) 
they developed the spherical theory of the earth; (3) they system- 
atized the materials that they accumulated; (4) they invented a 
complete geographical apparatus, maps, globes, parallels and merid- 



ians, zones and equator, projections, and the accepted division of 
the circle. As to the relations of the earth and the. sun, the Greek 
philosophers were not agreed. 

The known world when the Grreco-Roman civilization had 
reached its culmination was quadrilateral in form, lying northwest 
and southeast. Roughly speaking, a right line drawn from the 
southern tip of Scandinavia to the northern end of the Caspian Sea, 
and thence to the mouth of the Ganges, was its northern boundary, 
and a similar line connecting Cape Non and Cape Guardafui, and 
thence extending eastward, its southern boundary. This world 
covered some sixty degrees of latitude, and twice that extent of 
longitude. Within these limits, however, were extensive regions of 
which the best informed men knew little or nothing; while the 
relations of the world that they knew to the world that they did not 
know, Avas then an insolvable problem. Two antagonistic theories 
were evolved, the Oceanic and the Continental. Eratosthenes, start- 
ing perhaps from the Homeric notion of a circumfluent ocean, held 
that all the seas and oceans were connected. Among the writers 
who held this theory was Pomponius Mela, who maintained, in his 
treatise written about the year 50 A. D. , that the only obstacle to 
the circumnavigation of Africa was the intense heat of the torrid 
zone. Hipparchus, and still more strongly Ptolemy, repelled the 
idea of outside oceans, and made land the connecting tissue of the 
surface of the earth. Ptolemy believed in the indefinite northward 
and eastward extension of Asia, and a similar southward extension 
of Africa; he even went so far as to maintain that the two conti- 
nents came together in the far southeast, thus holding the Indian 
Ocean in their firm embrace. How very different were these two 
theories, a glance at the maps of the world according to Mela and 
Ptolemy will show. The first was evidently much the more favorable 
to maritime adventure and discovery; and it is pertinent to observe 
that the great discoverers and geographers of modern times belong 
to the lineage of Eratosthenes and not of Ptolemy. And yet it was 
Ptolemy who gave the Greek geography its final shaping, and who 
controlled for centuries the thinking of scientific men on these sub- 
jects. 



Those who accepted the Greek geography, at least those who 
leaned to the Oceanic theory, could hardly fail to speculate on the 
relations of the eastern and western parts of the earth as they knew 
it. Aristotle wrote: "They who maintain that Spain and India are 
separated simply by the sea do not appear to maintain an incredible 
notion.'' Strabo reports Eratosthenes as saying: "If the extent of 
the Atlantic Ocean did not prevent, it would be possible for us to 
sail from Spain to India along the same parallel." Strabo himself 
threw out this conjecture: "It is very possible that in the same tem- 
perate zone, near the parallel of Thinae or Athens, which passes 
through the Atlantic Ocean, besides the world we inhabit, there 
may be one or more other worlds peopled by beings different 
from ourselves." Seneca was still bolder: "In tardy years the 
epoch will come in which the ocean will unloose the bonds of 
nature, and the great earth will stretch out, and the sea will dis- 
close new worlds; nor will Thule be the most remote on the globe." 
Such passages as these are valuable, not merely as constituting a 
part of the great store of Greek thought, but also as links in the 
chain of causes that finally led up to the great event which we com- 
memorate. 

In fact a plurality of worlds was rather a favorite idea of ancient 
men of science. It is conjectured that it was the thought of these 
other worlds that caused the great Alexander to weep because he 
had nothing more to conquer. Cicero at one time contemplated 
embodying current learned opinion in a work on geography. 
"Cicero's popularization of this doctrine of more oikoumenai than 
one," says Mr. Payne, "fell in with the ideas of the Augustan age. 
The dream of the Greek conqueror was transferred to the victorious 
people who had succeeded to his heritage. Poets sang of the worlds 
which still awaited the rule of the master of the oikoumene. Geo- 
graphers boldly spoke of an alter orbis or second and new world." 
However it may have been with scientific interest, practical seaman- 
ship and economical and political needs were quite too feeble in 
that age to warrant attempts to test these notions. 

It must not be supposed that the Greek geography was at any 
time generally accepted; the vulgar were still bound by the apparent 



8 

evidence of their senses to the disc or parallelogram theory; but 
men who were abreast of the scientific work of their time appear 
t o have accepted its fundamental ideas as fully as the same class of 
men accept the current scientific theories of our own day. 

With the final triumph of Christianity over heathenism, the 
Christian hierarchy took charge of the human mind. Pagan science, 
literature, and philosophy were placed under ban. The Middle 
Ages drew their dark mantle over Europe. In the great declension 
of knowledge that now ensued, perhaps no sciences suffered more 
than geography and astronomy. Whole regions of the earth fell 
out of sight; the oihoumene shrank up, and the old and crude theories 
of the earth were revived. In the Patristic Geography the " firma- 
ment" of Genesis, the "circle" of Isaiah, the "compass" of the 
Proverbs, the "tabernacle" of the letter to the Hebrews, the "foun- 
dations" and the "ends" of the earth, and "the running about of 
the sun," took the places of the ideas that the Greeks had deduced 
by long and careful observation. In the sixth century Cosmas 
Indicopleustes, an Alexandrian monk who had been a merchant and 
a traveler, wrote his famous "Christian Topography," which is at 
once a great delight to the curious and also a good example of 
Middle Age cosmography. Cosmas made the universe a box or 
chest, in the bottom of which, in the northern part, under the firm- 
ament, he placed a lofty conical mountain, around which the 
heavenly bodies revolve. In summer the sun wheels around the 
top of the cone, in the winter around the base, thus causing the 
long days and the short days of the two seasons. This system, 
established by demonstration from Divine Scriptures, it was not law- 
ful for a Christian to doubt. 

But by and by the clouds began to lift. The Saracens had a 
genius for science as well as for conquest, and they considerably 
widened the circle of geographical knowledge. The Jews also, 
traders and sojourners, made their contribution to the common stock. 
The Crusades revealed to the Western nations extensive regions of 
which before they knew little, and also threw open the portals to 
Central Asia, inviting the merchant and traveler to enter. Mission- 



9 

ary adventures were made into distant countries. In the annals of 
those times romance abounds, but perhaps there is nothing more 
romantic than the notion of Prester, or Presbyter, John, a fabled 
Christian king whom fancy sometimes placed in Africa and some- 
times in Asia, but always beyond the verge of the known world, and 
to find whom persistent efforts were made. The Mongols, who 
under Genghis Khan and his successors established their power from 
eastern China to Poland, although barbarians, rather invited than 
repelled contact with Christendom. For a full century all Asia 
north of the great central east-and-west mountain ranges was thrown 
open to Western men. About the middle of the thirteenth century, 
two Franciscan monks, Friar John, sent by Innocent IV., and 
Rubruquis, sent by St. Louis, of France, made their way as far 
east as Karakoruni, the capital of the Grand Khan, where they fell 
in with Chinese from whom they learned that Asia did not extend 
indefinitely eastward, as Ptolemy had taught, but was bounded by 
an ocean, and henceforth this knowledge had an important bearing 
on the course of events. A little past the middle of the same cen- 
tury, Nicolo and Maffeo Polo, Venetian merchants, made their way 
by Constantinople, the Crimea, the Volga, and Bokhara to the 
court of Kublai-Khan, who then danced before the eyes of living 
men as he now dances before the eyes of readers of romance, the 
same who did in Xanadu 

" A stately pleasure-dome decree." 
In 1269 the brothers returned home, charged with a message from 
the Khan to the Pope. 

In 1271 the Polos undertook a second, and, as it turned out, a 
much more important journey to the same distant country, this time 
taking with them Marco Polo, son of Nicolo. Taking a more south- 
ern route than before, they reached their destination in 1275. 
Young Marco was soon established in the court of the Grand Khan, 
and attached to his person, while his father and uncle engaged in 
trade. Possessing an active intelligence, and moving here and there 
over the eastern parts of the Khan's empire, Marco's opportunities 
for gathering information were the best that could be desired. In 
1292 the Polos started homeward, making their way by sea around 



10 

the Golden Chersonese, to the Persian Gulf, and thence overland to 
the Euxine, and then by the Bosphorus to Venice, where they had 
long been given up for dead. A few years later Marco Polo fell 
into the hands of the Genoese, and while languishing in prison he 
dictated to an amanuensis the wonderful story that is popularly 
known as "The Travels of Marco Polo." Sooner or later this book 
was published in the principal languages of Europe, and its marvel- 
ous tales of Cathay and Cipango, as China and Japan are called, 
not only made a deep impression upon men's minds, but were fol- 
lowed by great practical results. Even in our own day, great 
scholars have been glad to devote their learning to the elucidation 
of this book. Colonel Yule, the ablest of these, says "all other 
travellers of that time are but stars of a low magnitude beside the 
full orb of Marco Polo." Everything considered, he was the great- 
est traveler that ever lived. These three Venetians were the first 
Europeans to ci'oss the continent of Asia, and to make a sea voyage 
around its southeastern projection. However, they were not the 
only Christians of those times, or indeed the first ones, to visit the 
Central parts of Asia; the fact is, such visits were by no means 
uncommon. Among the books that turned men's minds to the East 
in the ensuing age, Sir John Mandeville's strange mixture of truth 
and fiction should not be forgotten. 

From an early time the Mediterranean and the Indian Seas 
were in commercial relations. The fleets of Solomon and Hiram 
sailed to Ophir and Tarshish, fetching thence gold and silver, ivory, 
apes, peacocks, almug trees, and precious stones. Much learning 
has been expended in efforts to identify Ophir and Tarshish; the 
first must have lain somewhere in the East, for it was reached from 
Ezion-Gebir, on the Red Sea. Herodotus celebrated the wealth and 
splendor of the Indies. All through the Macedonian and Roman 
periods Western men eagerly sought the wealth of Ormus and of 
Ind. The silks that the Romans of Virgil's time so much prized 
came from China, although the Romans knew nothing about the 
Chinese. It might be thought that commerce would have compelled 
a larger geographical knowledge, if it did not grow out of it; but we 
must remember that the Indian trade was carried on by an extensive 



11 

organization of middlemen and intermediate depots. In the Grseco- 
Roman period the channels of communication were three in number. 
One lay by the Bosphorus, the Euxine, and the Caspian to the 
Oxus, and thence to the Indus. A second ran up the Nile and 
across the desert to the Red Sea. The third crossed Syria and de- 
scended the Euphrates to the Persian Gulf. How rich was the com- 
merce that flowed through these channels, the cities of Constantinople, 
Tyre, Palmyra, and Alexandria attest. In Mediaeval times the com- 
mercial cities of Italy were fed by the same feeding-pipes. Genoa 
seized the northern route, while Venice at different times monopo- 
lized the middle and the southern routes. Still, these cities were not 
terminal points; the Eastern products, flowing through the Alpine 
passes, reached Augsburg and Nuremberg, the Hanse Towns and the 
cities of Flanders. The policy of the Italian maritime cities was 
largely controlled by the silks and spices and gums of the East, the 
barbaric pearl and gold; and how directly their prosperity depended 
upon this commerce is shown by the fact that their decline dates 
from the time when their monopoly came to an end. In the inven- 
tory of the Indian commodities, we find aloes, balsam, sandal -wood, 
camphor, cinnamon, cardamon, cassia, cloves, cochineal, frankincense, 
ginger, gum-lac, indigo, ivory, laudanum, mastic, musk, mace, nut- 
megs, nutgalls, pearls, emeralds, turquoises, rubies, sapphires, dia- 
monds, pepper, rhubarb, saffron, raw silk, porcelain, sugar, damask, 
gold and silver thread, samite, camlet and other cloths, and brazil 
wood, from which Brazil derives its name. To a great extent well- 
to-do Europeans came to regard these articles, not as luxuries, but as 
necessaries. Without spices, ginger, pepper, cloves, and cinnamon, 
the table lost half its pleasures. So long as the Phoenicians, the 
Greeks, and the Romans controlled the channels of communication 
to the East, the westward flow of these articles had been practically 
unimpeded. Nor did the advent of the Mohammedan make much 
difference; the Saracen was a civilized man, thoroughly commercial 
in spirit and habit. But the Turk — the unspeakable Turk — was a 
barbarian bent on destruction; and when he got his clutches on the 
vast region extending from the Nile to the Hellespont, by his tolls 
and robberies he largely reduced the supply of Eastern products in 



12 

European markets and greatly enhanced prices. Thus, at the very 
time when Western men were findiug themselves able to buy more 
of the coveted articles, they were confronted by a prospect of their 
total loss. Nor did this involve merely a denial of the pleasures of 
taste; it involved also the loss of a most lucrative commerce and of 
the resulting political, military, and naval power. It is said that as 
late as the early days of the East India Company, the profits of a 
voyage to the Eastern seas rarely fell below one hundred per cent., 
and that commonly they reached two hundred per cent. 

The seizure of western Asia and of Egypt by the Turks coin- 
cided with some important changes in the West, — as increase of 
wealth, quickening intelligence, growth of enterprise, and valuable 
practical improvements in navigation. The influence of the new 
discoveries in geography began to be felt. Emancipating them- 
selves in part from theological subjects and the theological spirit, 
men began once more to cultivate natural knowledge with thorough 
zeal. A desire for direct sea-route communications with the 
East, not liable to interruptions, began to take hold of men's 
minds. And so some bold spirits began to ask whether the 
Oceanic theory or the Continental theory of the earth was the true 
one; or, more narrowly, whether there was not an outside route to 
the lands where silks and spices grew, where the sea-waves laved 
shores inlaid with mother of pearl, where diamond fields were rich 
and abundant, and where the rivers rolled their waters over shining 
dust. To find such a route to the gorgeous East was the master 
passion of the great period known in history as the Age of Maritime 
Discovery. Nor did the desire to bring the East and the West into 
closer relations expend itsslf in the discovery of the roads around 
the two great Capes; it is seen in the unavailing efforts to find 
northwest and northeast passages, and in our present railways and 
canals uniting the waters on the opposite sides of the continents. 

Prince Henry of Portugal, fourth son of King John 1. and 
Phillippa, daughter of John of Gaunt, was born in 1394. After 
winning a high reputation as a soldier and man of affairs, the Prince 
at an earlv age threw himself with ardor into the Eastern Question of 



13 

his time. Adopting the views thrown out by Pomponius Mela 
relating to the peninsular form of Africa, he raised for consideration 
and practical solution the problem of its circum navigability. 
Besides reaching the Indies, the Prince hoped to divert the stream 
of gold that flowed from the Gold Coast by Timbuctoo and Tunis 
into Mohammedan hands, and also to enlarge the bounds of Mother 
Church. Establishing himself on the promontory of Sagres, the 
Sacred Promontory of antiquity, he founded an observatory and 
school of nautical science, into which he drew youths who desired to 
learn the mysteries of navigation. Mr. Major says of the Navi- 
gator, as Prince Henry is commonly called: " Until his day the 
pathway of the human race had been the mountain, the river, and 
the plain, the strait, the lake, and inland sea; but he it was who 
first conceived the thought of opening a road through the unexplored 
ocean, a road replete with danger but abundant in promise." Mr. 
Major says further: " If, from the pinnacle of: our present knowl- 
edge, we mark on the world of waters those bright tracks which, 
during four centuries and a half, have led to the discovery of mighty 
continents, we shall find them all lead us back to that same inhos- 
pitable point of Sagres, and the motive which gave it a royal 
inhabitant." 

The enterprise that the Prince now took in hand was fraught 
with peculiar difficulty and peril. First of all was the great ques- 
tion of the intercommunication of the two oceans. The terrors with 
which the Western imagination had long invested the Atlantic Ocean 
are well shown by one of its names, the Sea of Darkness. As to the 
torrid zone, the common opinion was expressed by Pliny: "The 
middle of the earth, on which is the path of the sun, is parched and 
set on fire by the luminary and is consumed by being so near the 
heat. "Whosoever passes Cape Non will return or not," was a cur- 
rent Portuguese proverb. Withal, the undertaking must necessarily 
entail great expenses. 

It is neither possible nor necessary to follow the Portuguese cap- 
tains as, one after another, they creep down the western coast of 
Africa. In 1418-1420 Porto Santo and Madeira were rediscovered. 
In 1435 Cape Bojador was passed. In 1460 the Prince died, but 



not until he had made what was, in its inception, a personal under- 
taking a national one. The kings of Portugal, who were his near 
kinsmen, after some delay, began again to send expeditions down the 
coast. In 1471 the equator was crossed, in 1484 the mouth of the 
Congo reached, and in 1487 Dias reached what he called Stormy Gape, 
but what the King with more courage renamed Cape of Good Hope. 
In 1497 Da Gama awakened the wrathful vengeance of the Genius 
of the Cape; and, standing first to the northward along the eastern 
shore, and then eastward across the open ocean, finally dropped hi& 
anchors in the harbor of Calicut, a port on the Malabar coast, thus 
demonstrating the theories of Eratosthenes. Pomponius Mela, and 
Henry the Navigator. 

But aucient writers had pointed out a Western sea-route to the 
Indies even more plainly than an Eastern one. What is more, in 
1267 Roger Bacon made a collection of quotations from old writers 
with the view of showing that Spain and India were much less widely 
separated than was commonly thought; and in 1410 Pierre d' Aill}^, 
Cardinal Bishop of Cambray, copied these quotations into his "Imago 
Mundi," one of the famous books of the fifteenth century. Mr. 
Lowell makes Columbus say, in recounting the sources of his faith: 

"For I believed the poets; it is they 
Who utter wisdom from the central deep, 
And, listening to the inner flow of things, 
Speak to the age out of eternity." 

Certainly the poets occupied themselves with the theme. Dante 
makes Ulysses, at the Pillars of Hercules, exhort his companions not 
to deny the unpeopled world, and Pulci makes the Devil confute the 
old theory that these Pillars are the western limit of the earth. 

" Know that this theory is false; his bark 
The daring mariner shall urge far o'er 
The western wave, a smooth and level plain, 
Albeit the earth is fashioned like a wheel. 
Man was in ancient days of grosser mould, 
And Hercules might blush to learn how far 
Beyond the limits he had vainly set, 
The dullest sea-boat soon shall wing her way. 



15 

Men shall descry another hemisphere, 

Since to one common center all things tend; 

So earth, by curious mystery divine 

Well balanced, hangs amid the starry spheres. 

At our Antipodes are cities, states, 

And thronged empires, ne'er divined of yore. 

But see, the Sun speeds on his western path 

To glad the nations with expected light." 1 

Through a member of his court, King Alfonso V., of Portugal, 
applied to Toscanelli, the venerable Florentine astronomer, to know 
whether he could not recommend to him a shorter road to the East 
than the one in course of prosecution on the African coast. 
Toscanelli replied on June 25, 1474, stating that he had formerly 
spoken to his correspondent about such a road. This route lay to 
the west across the Atlantic, and was exhibited on the sailing chart, 
made by the astronomer's own hand, accompanying the letter. "Do 
not wonder," he said, "at my calling west the parts where the 
spices are, whereas they are commonly called east, because to per- 
sons sailing persistently westward those parts Avill be found by 
courses on the under side of the earth." Unfortunately, there is no 
known copy of this map; but it is not difficult to reproduce it in sub- 
stance, because, first, the description found in the letter is quite 
full, and, secondly, some years later Martin Behaim, in constructing 
the celebrated Nuremberg globe, sometimes called " The World 
Apple," appears to have followed it in laying down the waters and 
islands off the eastern coast of Asia. In these details, however, 
Toscanelli did little more than copy from Marco Polo. Why the 
King wrote to Toscanelli, and why he dropped the subject on receiv- 
ing so favorable an answer, we can only conjecture. The corres- 
pondence is extremely important because it shows that the King was 
not wholly absorbed in the African interprise, but mainly because 
it contains the first practical suggestion ever made, so far as we 
know, for reaching the East by sailing into the West. 

The historical critics have long been very busy with Christopher 
Columbus, and there is hardly a fact in relation to him which has 
not been challenged. By his own testimony the city of Genoa was 



x See Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella II, 117. 



16 

the place of his nativity, but the same testimony is not decisive as 
to the time. It is pretty certain that he was born in 1436 or 1446, 
the scale, inclining, perhaps toward the first of these dates. His 
father was a weaver, or wool-comber, a member of the burgher class, 
and always involved in financial difficulties. Of the Discoverer's 
youth we know very little. For a time he seems to have followed 
the same trade as his father. We cannot tell when he turned his 
attention to the sea. Mr. Lowell causes him to say: 

" from my boyhood up I loved to hear 

The tall pine-forests of the Appenine 
Murmur their hoary legends of the sea," 

and well may it have been so. Neither do Ave know the extent of 
his attainments in learning and science. Sir Arthur Helps remarks 
that "the greatest geographical discoveries have been made by men 
conversant with the book knowledge of their own time," and this 
was true of Columbus. He wrote Latin, studied geography care- 
fully, picked up some acquaintance with astronomy and mathe- 
matics, and became an expert draughtsman. It was perfectly 
natural that he should adopt maritime pursuits. Relatively at least 
the greatest days of Venice and Genoa had already passed, and the 
Western states, especially Portugal, were assuming new promi- 
nence; but the Italians still surpassed all competitors in the science 
and art of navigation. Witness the list of Italians who distinguished 
themselves under foreign flags in the Maritime Age: Cadamosto, 
the two Cabots, Vespucius, Verrazano, and Columbus. In the 
fifteenth century an enterprising Genoese sought his fortune on the 
sea as naturally as, in the twelfth century, an adventurous knight- 
errant sought his in the Holy Land. 

From the days of Prince Henry, Portugal held out attractions 
to adventurous seafaring men not found in any other country. 
Drawn by these attractions, no doubt, Columbus made his way to 
Lisbon about 1472, where his younger brother Bartholomew had 
already preceded him. In 1473 he married Phillippa, daughter of 
a distinguished Italian navigator, Bartholomew Perestrello, whom 
Prince Henry had once made governor of Porto Santo, an island 
which lies but a little to one side of the route to the Cape. On the 



17 

same island Columbus appears to have lived with his wife, making 
good use of the sailing charts and nautical memoranda that his 
father-in-law had left "behind him on his death. Here it was, as 
some have thought, but without the slightest proof, that he con- 
ceived the great purpose with which his name is identified. He 
soon removed to Lisbon, where he devoted his time mainly to map- 
making and to sea voyages. He tells us that more than once he 
sailed in the Portuguese ships that were prosecuting Prince Henry's 
errand, and that he also made a voyage into the far Northern seas. 
We must not lose sight of this connection of Columbus with the 
Portuguese voyages. After calling the discovery of America an 
achievement which formed the connecting link between the old 
world and the new, Mr. Major says "the explorations instituted by 
Prince Henry of Portugal were in truth the anvil upon which that 
link was forged." 

One of the unfortunate facts in the life of Columbus is 
that we cannot certainly tell the time when he formed his plan of a 
Western voyage. The earliest document showing that he was con- 
sidering the subject is a letter written to him by Toscanelli, in 
answer to a request for information. It is undated. This letter 
was written, however, posterior to 1474, for the major part of it is 
a transcript of the letter dispatched by the Florentine to King 
Alfonso in that year. Toscanelli also sends a duplicate of the map 
that he had sent to the King. Toscanelli recognizes his "great and 
noble desire" to go to "the place where the spices grow," and in a 
later letter commends as " noble and grand" Columbus's project of 
"sailing from east to west, according to the indications furnished by 
the map." "For these reasons and many others that might be 
mentioned," he says, after a summary of arguments, "I do not 
wonder that you who are of great courage, and the whole Portuguese 
nation, which always had men distinguished in all such enterprises, 
are now influenced with a desire to execute the said voyage." These 
letters prove that Columbus had now matured a project, and that 
there was a probability of its being soon tested. "I am much 
pleased to see," remarks the astonomer, "that I have been well 
understood, and that the voyage has become not only possible but 



18 

certain." This hope was not, however, to be realized. Few docu- 
ments relating to the subject are more valuable than these letters, 
and it is matter of regret that we cannot fix their dates. 

Ferdinand Columbus informs us that his father was convinced 
of tlie feasibility of his project by these arguments: (1) Natural 
reason, or conclusions drawn from science; (2) authority of 
writers, amounting to little more than speculations of the ancients;. 
(3) testimony of sailors, comprehending in addition to popular 
rumors of lands discovered in Western voyages, such relics as- 
appeared to have floated to the European shores from the other side 
of the Atlantic. 1 Further on we shall see in what the originality 
of Columbus consisted; here it is important to comment upon his 
relations to Toscanelli. 

It is perfectly clear that the eminent Florentine astronomer did 
not obtain his ideas from Columbus. But whether the Genoese 
formed the project of a voyage into the West independently, or 
borrowed it from Florence, there is small reason to think that we 
shall ever know. It is possible that King Alfonso applied to Tos- 
canelli for information on the suggestion of Columbus, but it 
is improbable. It is certain that Toscanelli had discussed the sub- 
ject with Martinez, the member of the court referred to, before 
1474, and the idea may have drifted from their correspond- 
ence into Columbus's mind. But granting that Columbus struck out 
the plan for himself, we must not overlook the fact that he resorted 
to Florence for information to clear up his own mind or to convince 
skeptics, or for both reasons, and that he carried Toscauelli's sailing- 
chart with him on his first voyage. 

There is no dispute that Columbus studied with utmost care 
whatever he could find relating to the subject that came to absorb 
all his thoughts. He read Marco Polo and lived in societies that 
were saturated with his famous book. He thumbed and rethumbed 
the "Imago Mundi," carried it with him to sea, and covered his 
own well-worn copy over with annotations. It is interesting to 
know, by the way, that this particular copy has been preserved; it 



i Prescott: Ferdinand and Isabella II, 11(5. 



19 

is at Seville, one of the most curious and valuable documents found 
in the Biblioteca Columbina. He dwelt fondly also upon the pass- 
age in the fourth book of Esdras that makes the earth six parts 
land and one water, a fact that throws light upon his great blunder 
as to the distance separating Spain and Cathay, and also shows that 
his mind was by no means emancipated from authority. Then the 
mythical islands that men scattered on the surface of the Western 
Sea had a certain influence on his mind. 

Our American poet makes Columbus hear Biarne's keel 
" Crunch the gray pebbles of the Yinland shore." 
and Scandinavian scholars, inspired by patriotism, discover the more 
important antecedents of his voyage in the far North. It seems 
highly probable that the Northmen made their way by Iceland and 
Greenland to the American coast about the beginning of the elev- 
enth century, and that there were occasional communications 
between Scandinavia and America for a century and more; but it is 
perfectly certain that these adventurers never dreamed that they 
had sailed beyond the confines of Europe, that their voyages made 
little if any impression on the Southern nations, and that they were 
finally forgotten even in the North, left buried for centuries in the 
heap of the Norse Sagas. Nor is there the slightest evidence that 
Columbus ever heard of these voyages, or that they would have had 
the slightest practical interest for his 'mind, since they were not at 
all in the line of his ideas; on the other hand, his conduct refutes 
the theory of Norse influence. 

Columbus made a determined effort to enlist the King of Por- 
tugal in his plan. For obvious reasons, that monarch, above all 
others, should have been the man to listen to him with consideration, 
but for reasons that are not altogether clear he finally rejected the 
overture. Disappointed where he had most reason to expect success, 
Columbus now made his way to Spain. 

At the close of 1484, when he is supposed to have arrived, 
Catholic Spain was in the throes of the final struggle w r ith Moham- 
medan Spain, and the revenues of their Majesties were all devoted 
to the prosecution of the wai*. Columbus's project was a greater 



20 

novelty here .han it bad been in Portugal, for the larger kingdom 
was quite in the rear of the smaller one in maritime development. 
Some wiseacres objected that the very novelty of the scheme con- 
demned it. The Patristic geography was duly produced; the old 
Biblical texts and quotations from the Fathers were all brought out 
of the armory and refurbished. Two years after his arrival, the 
Genoese was admitted to the service of Ferdinand and Isabella, and 
for several years his ideas were more or less under consideration. 
Sometimes an attache of the Court, sometimes a soldier in the camp, 
sometimes an intercessor at the door of some great nobleman or 
powerful ecclesiastic, he urged his suit with a zeal and steadfastness 
that made him a world's example. But all to no immediate pur- 
pose. Slowly, however, he won over to his side several influential 
persons — the Duke of Mediua-Celi ; Juan Perez, at one time the 
Queen's father confessor; Deza and Talavera, the Royal confessors; 
Mendoza, Archbishop of Toledo, and Quintanilla and Santangel, the 
Royal treasurers, and also some ladies of high esteem at Court. At 
last Isabella, to Avhom Columbus especially looked for favor, prom- 
ised to give the subject serious attention as soon as the war should 
come to an end. In January, 1492, Grenada surrendered, the 
unfortunate Boabdil heaved "the last sigh of the Moor," and the 
Queen declared herself ready to fulfill her promise. 

New difficulties now arose. The conditions that Columbus 
made were of such a nature that even Talavera advised the Queen 
to reject them. The negotiations were broken off promptly, and 
apparently forever. Columbus, well aware that he had no time to 
lose, mounted his mule and rode out of Grenada resolved to transfer 
his quest to France. As the walls of the Moorish city receded 
behind him, Santangel made a final and effective appeal to Isabella; 
a courier mounted on a swift horse was dispatched to bring Colum- 
bus back to the Court; Ferdinand was finally won over, an agree- 
ment was arrived at, and the necessary papers were duly executed. 

These are the principal articles of the contract, signed at Santa 
Fe by the King and Queen April 17, as formulated by Irving: 

"1. That Columbus should have for himself during his life, 
and for his heirs and successors forever, the office of Admiral in all 



21 

the lands and continents which he might discover or acquire in the 
ocean, with similar honors and prerogatives to those enjoyed by the 
high admiral of Castile in his district. 

"2. That he should be viceroy and governor-general over all 
the said lands and continents, with the privilege of nominating 
three candidates for the government of each island or province, one 
of whom should be selected by the sovereigns. 

"3. That he should be entitled to reserve for himself one tenth 
of all pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and all other 
articles and merchandises, in whatever manner found, bought, 
bartered, or gained within his admiralty, the costs being first 
deducted. 

"4. That he or his lieutenant should be the sole judge in all 
causes and disputes arising out of traffic between those countries and 
Spain, provided the high admiral of Castile had similar jurisdiction 
in his district. 

"5. That he might then and at all after times contribute an 
eighth part of the expense in fitting out vessels to sail on this enter- 
prise, and receive an eighth part of the profits." 

Another document, executed April 30, conferred the title of 
Don upon Columbus, his heirs and successors. 

The scenes now change; the map-maker and projector becomes 
the discoverer and the founder. On Friday, August 3, 1492, 
having placed his voyage under the protection of the Holy Trinity, 
he sailed from Palos, and on Friday, October 12, made his land-fall. 
All these religious items have been carefully pressed into service by 
the Catholic coterie who advocate his canonization. After spend- 
ing many weeks in the Western seas and discovering many islands, 
including Hayti and Cuba, he returned to Spain in March, 1493, to 
receive such honors as kings bestow upon the favorites of fortune. 
American history had begun. 

It is not necessary to deal with Columbus's later history. An 
old Greek could desire no better proof of the doctrine of Nemesis 
than his life; his serious troubles date from the culmination of 
his career, and continue to multiply until he dies poor and 



22 

neglected in Valladolid, in 1506. As still further illustrations of 
the uncertainties hanging over his life, we may mention that the 
identity of the island that the Indians called Guanahani and he 
San Salvador is warmly disputed; that it is uncertain whether his 
ashes rest in San Domingo or in Havana, and that of all the num- 
erous portraits of him not one is admitted to be authentic, 

A thousand times has the failure to call by his name 
the world to which Columbus piloted the way, been declared a 
grievous wrong. Had such a suggestion been made to him, he 
would have repelled it with passionate warmth. He interpretated 
everything that he and others discovered in the West in the light of 
his own strong prepossessions. He had brooded on Asia, he sailed 
for Asia, his great plans turned on Asia, and it was Asia that he had 
found. To listen to anything else would have been treason to the 
passion of his life. Some facts confirmed his prepossessions. He 
found the Bahamas and the Antilles in about the longitude where 
he expected to find the Asiatic coast and the islands skirting it. He 
promptly identified Hispaniola as Cipango, and on his second voyage, 
having followed the southern shore of Cuba a long distance without 
finding an end, that he might convince the gainsayers at home, he 
caused his crews to take an oath that the island was the mainland of 
Asia. It was in this faith that he called the countries which he 
found The Indies, the natives, Indians. He had sought what he 
did not find; he had found what he did not seek. We know that 
his failure was a far grander triumph than his success could have 
been, but this thought lay below the horizon of his day. How 
pathetic it is to find him writing not long before his death: "If any- 
one does not give me credit for having discovered the remaining 
parts of India, it simply arises from personal hostility." 

But we must not think Columbus blinder than others. Asia 
had completely enthralled the men of that age, and they could see 
no other vision when they looked into the West. History is full of 
examples, including both the Cabots, and explorers as late as John 
Smith, Henry Hudson, and La Salle. John Cabot thought that he 
had landed in the territory of the Grand Kahu; he had landed in 



23. 

the region of the St. Lawrence. Nor must we forget the difficulty 
of the task in hand. When the first Western discoveries were made, 
men did not know the size of the eai'th or the eastward extension of 
Asia, arid the ablest geographers could not reasonably be expected 
to co-ordinate the islands and shores that were found by a hundred 
navigators, here and there, often separated by long stretches of 
water or land of which they were wholly ignorant. As intimated in 
the beginning, Columbus did not on October 12, 1492, really dis- 
cover America; what he did was to perform the first act in the long 
series that constitute such discovery. Many ships sailed, many laud- 
falls were made, and much new knowledge was gathered and co-or- 
dinated before an idea of the New World could begin to form in the 
minds of men. The man who named America did not know what 
he was naming any more than Columbus knew what he was discov- 
ering; and it was not until Magellan had crossed the Pacific that the 
new discoveries could be seen in anything like their true relations. 
The slow emergence of America from the Sea of Darkness, which 
can be fully understood only by one who has looked carefully into 
the history of American cartography, is the best possible illustration 
of the enormous difficulty attending the organization of a mass of new 
facts by ardent men whose minds are filled with a false hypothesis. 
Thoroughly to cast Asia out of the map of the Western Hemisphere 
was the work of two hundred years. 

Americus Vespucius was long supposed to have robbed Co- 
lumbus of the honor that was his due. This is now known to be a 
baseless charge. Without attempting to guess the Vespucian riddle, 
which is, perhaps, the most perplexing in the history of Western 
explorations, we may state the main facts in relation to the baptism 
of the New World. 

In April or May, 1503, Vespucius wrote a letter to Lorenzo 
d'Medici, giving an account of his voyage of 1501-2, the so-called 
third of the Vespucian voyages, in which he had followed the South 
American coast far to the south of Cape San Roque. Deeply im- 
pressed by the lands that he had visited, which lay wholly outside of 
the range of ancient ideas or of recent discoveries, he thought it 



24 

proper to call them a new world. The translator and editor of a 
Latin version of this letter that appeared at the beginning of the 
next year, caught up these words and made them the title of the little 
pamphlet, "Mundus Novus." Numerous editions of this tract were 
published in different languages, and among others a Latin edition at 
Strasburg, in 1505, under the editorship of a young man whom we 
shall soon have occasion to mention again. In September, 1504, 
Vespucius wrote a letter to Soderini, a magistrate of Florence and 
an old school fellow, in which he gave a rough outline of his 
four voyages. This letter was published in Florence, July, 
1506. 

At the time with which we are dealing there was a small group 
of scholars, sometimes called an academy or college, clustered around 
a printing press in Saint Die, in the Vosges Mountains, the very 
place, strangely enough, where Pierre d'Ailly had written his 
"Imago Mundi." While these scholars were employed upon a new 
edition of Ptolemy, ttiere was brought' to them a French copy of 
Vespucius's letter to Soderini, which was at once handed over to 
Martin WaldseemuJler and Matthias Kingman, who were more 
especially charged with the work, to be used as material. Ringman 
was the man who had brought out the Strasburg edition of the letter 
to Lorenzo, and was therefore already familiar with the idea of a 
new world. Too impatient to await the tardy appearance of the 
Ptolemy, the two scholars executed a work that they named " Cos- 
mographue Introductio." This was a palpable case of book- 
making; the work, consisting of 52 leaves, contained a simple 
treatise on cosmography and the full text of the letter to Soderini. 
The last chapter of the original part of the work, following descrip- 
tions of Asia, Europe, and Africa, as the three grand divisions of 
the earth as taught by Ptolemy, contained this pregnant sen- 
tence: 

" But now these parts have been more extensively explored and 
another fourth part has been discovered by Americus Vespucius as 
will appear in what follows: wherefore I do not see what is rightly 
to hinder us from calling it Amerige or America, i. e., the land 
of Americus, after its discoverer Americus, a man of sagacious 



25 

mind, since both Europe and Asia have got their names from 
women." ! 

The " Cosmographiae Introductio " was published in 1507, and 
attained a considerable circulation. Its principal author, Waldsee- 
mtiller, who, according to the prevailing fashion of the times, 
renamed himself Hylacomylus, baptized America. "But for 
these seven lines," says Mr. Harisse, "written by an obscure 
geographer in the Vosges, the Western Hemisphere might have been 
called The Land of the Holy Cross, or Atlantis, or Iberia, or New 
India, or simply The Indies, as it is designated officially in Spain 
to-day." In fact, a part of the land thus named had already 
received the first of these titles. 

We must not suppose that the Saint-Die scholar dreamed what 
he was doing. He intended merely to call a part of the country 
that we know as Brazil, America. The name was soon expan- 
ded. On John Ruysch's map of 1508 so much of South 
America as appears is called Terra Sanctre Crucis, sive Mundus 
Novus, while the discoveries that had been made in the north are 
represented as appendages of Asia; on the map assigned to Leonardo 
da Vinci, about 1514, America takes the place of this double desig- 
nation, and on Mercator's projection, 1541, Labrador, Nova Scotia, 
Florida, Mexico, and Mundus Novus are connected by continuous, 
though very inaccurate coast lines, making a continent wholly dis- 
tinct and separate from Asia, while, as if to solemnize the marriage, 
the first three letters of the name AMERICA, now given to the 
whole continent, are placed above the site of Lake Superior, and 
the last four west of the River Plate. 

Most unfortuately, the controversies about the Great Admiral 
have involved his character and his life. The historical critics have 
been as busy with the man as with his story. Neither by nature 
nor by acquired habit was Washington Irving a critical historian ; 



iNunc vero et hae partes sunt latius lustratas et alia quarta pars per Arueri- 
curu Vesputiuru (ut in sequentibus audietur) inventaest quam non video cur quis 
jure vetet ab Americo inventore sagacis ingenii viro Amerigen, quasi Americi ter- 
rain, sive Americam dicendam, cum et Europa et Asia a mulieribus sua sortita sint 
nomina. 



26 

lie believed that erudition might even become pernicious; he believed 
more in the Muse of History than in the Science of History; lie 
thought the exemplars of the world worth preserving; he deprecated 
casting the demi-gods down from their high places: and of all his 
heroes perhaps Columbus most powerfully impressed his imagination. 
It is from his glowing pages that a great majority of Americans 
have derived their ideas of the Discoverer. With all deference to 
Mr. Irving and his theories of history, we must admit that he has 
overdrawn the picture. A living American scholar who has written 
one of the learned works called out by the Centenary, tends far 
toward the other extreme. Mr. Fiske does full justice to Mr. Win- 
sor's "Christopher Columbus" when he separates "between his 
contributions toward a correct statement of the difficult geographical 
questions connected with the subject," which he calls " the work of 
an acknowledged master in his chosen field," and his biographical 
estimate of the man. "No one can deny," says Mr. Fiske, "that 
Las Casas was a keen judge of men, or that his standard of right and 
wrong was quite as lofty as any one has reached in our own time. 
He had a much more intimate knowledge of Columbus than any 
modern historian can ever hope to acquire, and he always speaks of 
him with warm admiration and respect. But how could Las Casas 
ever have respected the feeble, mean-spirited driveller whose portrait 
Mr. Winsor asks us to accept as that of the Discoverer of America ?" 
Still, Columbus was not one of the few men, if indeed there be a 
few, who can challenge measurement by the standard of the ages. 
While he was in advance of his time, he yet craves judgment in 
many things by its canons. 

It is charged that he was avaricious and greedy of power. It 
must be admitted that in the negotiations at Granada, he does not 
appear as a single-minded devotee of science, content to find his 
reward in the solution of a problem of the centuries. But on this 
very point Las Casas warmly commends him for his "great constancy 
and loftiness of soul." We must remember that Columbus was 
looking to another and, to him, higher end than a new road to East- 
ern Asia. In the. grand vision that filled his brain, the Western 



27 

voyage was subordinate to a new attempt to recover the Holy 
Places from the infidel. So completely was he under the dominion 
of mystical ideas, that he did not know that the days of the 
Crusaders were over. He regarded himself as God's chosen agent 
for enlarging the realm of the true faith, and especially for the 
recovery of the Holy Sepulcher; the thought is present with him m 
all his negotiations; it lights up his eye as he walks the deck of his 
caravel at midnight; he makes a solemn vow that, if he is successful, 
he will himself organize a crusade of fifty thousand foot and four 
thousand horse; and in his last will and testament, written at Yalla- 
dolid when he is old and poor and fri mdless, he commands his son, 
if ever he should recover his lost rights, to carry out the purpose 
that has lain so heavy upon his father's heart. We should remem- 
ber, too, that the scientific impulse was weak in those days compared 
with ours; the working force in the Age of Discovery was far less 
the scientific spirit than practical advantage. Indeed, it can 
not be said that that spirit was, so far as kings and princess were con- 
cerned, an appreciable quantity. For the rest, we may admit that 
the Discoverer of America was not superior to 

" That last infirmity of noble mind." 
Sometimes the atrocious system that led to the enslavement and 
extermination of the Indians is laid at Columbus's door. This 
charge we cannot examine save in a single feature. It would appear 
plain that this system was engendered by causes and conditions lying 
deep in the civilization of the time, and largely beyond the control 
of any single mind. At the close of the fifteenth century, the line 
separating believers and infidels was sharply drawn, and the idea 
that true religion can be propagated only by persuasion still lay 
below the spiritual horizon of men. In the long struggle between the 
Cross and the Crescent, the Spanish temper had been whetted to the 
sharpest edge. Ecclesiastics taught that America was the new Land of 
Promise, and that Christians adventuring into it might emulate 
Israel under the lead of Joshua. For the pursuit of the poor 
savage of Hispaniola and Cuba, the bloodhound surpassed the 
Spaniard only in fleetness and keenness of scent. Moreover, the 
colonists were of a very heterogenous character; idleness, arrogance,. 



28 

turbulence, avarice, impatience of control by a foreigner, and extra- 
vagant expectations abounded in the new colony. Had Mr. 
Winsor placed due stress on these facts, he would perhaps have 
hesitated to say in his final summary that Columbus might 
have been the father of the New World, and could have made its 
youth benignant. 

As to slavery, the ideas and practices of the time are well 
known. Both Christian and Mohammedan captains depended upon 
slaves to propel their galleys, and long years after Columbus the 
slavery of the oar was one of the most revolting forms of the strife 
between Catholic and Protestant. Prince Henry, whose nobility of 
mind is not doubted, sanctioned the enslaving of negroes, thus mak- 
ing himself privy to that form of slavery which has left the most 
serious vices in civilization. Even the humane Las Casas consented 
to the substitution of the African slave for the Indian. Magellan 
lost his life in a battle fought to compel a heathen king to become a 
Christian. Sir John Hawkins, who did so much to promote the 
greatness of England, traded in slaves to the Guinea Coast. Sir 
Francis Drake, whose body, to our regret, lies in the sea rather than 
under the pavement of Westminster, waged cruel war upon Span- 
iards in a time of public peace, aud Queen Elizabeth was a silent 
partner in his voyages. By the Assiento of 1713, Queen Anne, 
through her licensed agents, became the sole slave-trader to Spanish 
America and the English Colonies, binding herself to bring 144,000 
negroes into the dominions of His Catholic Majesty in thirty years. 
But the recital becoTnes flat, stale, and unprofitable. 

No doubt Columbus's claim to be the messenger of the new 
heaven and the new earth, spoken of in Isaiah and in the Apoca- 
lypse, was something more than the common claim to providential 
guidance. He was not a cool, calculating, well-balanced philosopher 
or man of affairs, but a prophet and a crusader. He was born a 
mystic, he lived in the midst of mystical ideas, and he became more 
and more mystical as his years aud infirmities grew and his disap- 
pointments and humiliations increased. He was was not alone in 
the view that he entertained of his mission. Ferdinand Columbus, 
who was a learned scholar, thought his father's name was a token of 



29 

his being ordained " to carry the olive branch and oil of baptism 
over the ocean, like Noah's dove, to denote the peace and union of 
the heathen with the Church after they had been shut up in the ark 
of darkness and confusion." We cannot condemn the Genoese for 
his visions, exstacies, and fanaticisms without condemning scores of 
men Avhom the world delights to honor. Of one thing we may be 
certain; but for his exalted mental temperament he never would 
have discovered America. If Godfrey and his companions had not 
been capable of believing that the monks had found the spear which 
pierced the Savior's side, they would never have planted the banner 
of the Cross on the walls of Jerusalem. 

Columbus was not a great statesman, financier, or man of 
science. He did not originate the idea of the earth's sphericity, or 
demonstrate its truth. He was not the first to deduce from this idea 
the conclusion that somewhere the ends of the earth meet. He did 
not make the first, or even the best, estimate of the expanse of longi- 
tude separating Spain from Cathay. He was not the first man to 
suggest the possibility of finding the East in the West. All these 
ideas were more or less current in European seaports before he 
landed on the quays of Lisbon. He did not even understand what 
he had accomplished. At the mouth of the Orinoco he entertained 
for a moment the idea of a new continent, but only to fling it from 
him. It is, however, perfectly easy to state in what his greatness 
consisted. He united the scientific insight, the religious ardor, the 
sanguine temperament, the power of persuasion, the practical seaman- 
ship, which the solution of the old problem demanded. He took up the 
Western sea-route as a practical problem and devoted his life to its 
solution; in jourueyings often, in weariness and painfulness, in 
watchings and denials, in contempt and contumely, he prosecuted 
this solution until he persuaded the Spanish monarchs to give him 
an opportunity; and, once embarked upon the ocean, he held on his 
way, despite the fears and murmurs of his crews, until he had 
reached the borders of the New World and taught his successors to- 
find the rest. His originality was in achievement. If he did not 
think the thought, he did the deed. 



30 

The longer the time that elapses, the greater his achievement is 
seen to be. It added sixteen millions of square miles to the area of 
the earth and to the resources of civilization, capable of sustaining 
a population of many hundreds of millions of people. The mines 
and forests, the waters, mountains, and plains contribute rich and 
new elements to the service of man. The natural philosopher finds 
the most abundant materials for the enrichment of science. Span- 
iards, Portuguese, Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Dutchmen flock into 
the new regions, to develope their civilization under virgin con- 
ditions, and afterwards to be re-enforced by every people of Europe. 
The new populations, finding an embarrassment of natural agents at 
their command, and stimulated in all their faculties, swell the bur- 
den of the world's productions and wealth beyond the measure of 
their numbers. Not only do the new peoples attain to a high stan- 
dard of living themselves, but they contribute to raise the level in 
the Old AVorld. Thus, an elevation of the sphere of life becomes 
co-incident with its enlargement. The great commerce, henceforth 
disdaining narrow waters, spreads its wings on the great oceans, 
where the new conditions, as greater distance and stormier seas, 
compel incalculable improvements in the art of navigation. 
Both the range and the volume of exchanges are wonderfully 
expanded. Colonization brings the maritime nations into 
new relations, first with the savages and then with one 
another; and out of these relations are evolved important prin- 
ciples of public law, as the rule called the Eight of Discovery. 
Nor is this all; the letting loose of the fleets of the world under the 
competition of a growing commerce raises the question of the owner- 
ship of the ocean, and this leads, by the use of sword and pen, to 
the establishment of the broad maxim that the high seas are the 
common highways of nations, and also to the development of a large 
body of law regulating maritime rights and duties. Within the 
commonwealths planted by England, it soon becomes apparent that 
men will not move forever in their Old World grooves. Govern- 
ment takes on new forms and is based on new principles. Individual 
liberty is enlarged at the same time that social order is secured. 
Theologv and ecclesiastical discipline assume kindlier forms, and 



31 

the principle of a free church in a free state is established. Popular 
education is laid upon broad and deep foundations, and progressively 
the conclusion is worked out that, learn as we may from Europe, 
American education cannot be cramped within the limits of the 
Prussian ideas, but must find broader scope and freer expression. A 
civilization is developed that, in many of its aspects, is the marvel 
of history. Moreover, these larger and freer tendencies reach 
beyond our own borders, assisting to affect important changes in 
both American continents, and going to swell the tide of democra- 
tizing influence that is so powerfully affecting society in the Old 
World. 

In view of its results, we need not hesitate to place the dis- 
covery of America first in the list of great secular transactions. 
It is easy to say that this discovery was a blunder, that it would 
soon have been made by another if not by Columbus, and that he 
had no idea of its significance; but the august tribunal of history 
denies all such motions in abatement of honor made at her bar by 
special pleaders. Columbus showed great qualities in a great enter- 
prise, and his fame is perfectly secure. He led the way across the 
Sea of Darkness. He opened the portals of the Western Hemis- 
phere, not to Castile and Leon only, but to humanity. Four hun- 
dred years ago the American pageant began to move. Then it 
consisted of three small Spanish caravels, their officers and crews. 
Now it consists of twenty nations and a hundred and twenty millions 
of people. The man who stood at the head then by his own choice, 
stands at the head to-day by the common consent of mankind; and 
when four hundred more years have passed, and the pageant has 
assumed proportions yet grander and more imposing, he will still 
maintain his place. 




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